Abstract
Over the last decade it has been established that medium- to long-range weather patterns are significantly affected by
stratospheric events, and it is well known that the severe storms are critically dependent on the winds aloft. However,
existing observations of the dynamical atmosphere above the cloud tops are sparse and irregular, and remote
measurements of upper atmospheric winds have historically proved challenging. Current numerical models must rely on
data from widely separated land-based instruments and satellite observations with modest precision and coverage. Even
less plentiful are observations of the neutral atmosphere above 100 km, despite the high potential impact of space
weather on global navigational and electrical systems. We present here a new instrument concept, the Doppler Wind
and Temperature Sounder (DWTS) that will enable global daily measurements of winds and temperature from 15 to 250
km with fine vertical and horizontal sampling. The measurement concept leverages the high spectral resolution
inherently available with gas-filter correlation radiometry. By exploiting the Doppler shifts resulting from a limbviewing
low Earth orbit satellite, DWTS spectrally resolves large ensembles of atmospheric emission features. From
this, we are able to extract horizontal wind vectors and kinetic temperature with unprecedented precision. Here we
review the DWTS measurement concept, present simulation results, and conclude by describing a low-cost operational
system that would quantify atmospheric dynamics from the lower stratosphere into the mid thermosphere for the first
time.
